My name is Amber Beserra, I am an undergraduate student at Case Western Reserve University currently conducting research on the benefits of yoga in the treatment process of fibromyalgia. I am in the progress of writing a paper on the subject and would love to hear first hand from people with a clinical diagnosis of fibromyalgia who have tried practicing yoga.

If you are one of those people and have some time to answer a few open-ended questions or even just tell me whether or not you found yoga helpful I would be very grateful. All responses and personal information will be kept confidential and only your responses will be used in the paper. I am happy to use email, phone or any other means of communication you are comfortable with. After the paper is completed I will post the general finding back here as well as my own experience so everyone can see.

Please feel free to email me if you are interested or if you have any questions. My email is Amber.Beserra(at)case.edu
Thank you very much!

I find yoga very beneficial for Fibromyalgia. When I do yoga every day I feel much better, think more clearly, have more energy and have a lot less pain, particularly less back pain.

If I don't do yoga for a while due to time pressure etc, after 7-14 days
I get to the point where my body feels so bad without it that I end up doing it just to feel better: to increase the blood flow, to regain flexibility and to ease back pain so that I can carry on with my daily tasks. Just for info, the yoga I do is a routine of seven poses that takes about 40 minutes to complete.

Yoga is the one practice that actually got me back to work, my job was going to demote me because of the physical pain I kept having, so I went on disability for a few months and found yoga to help with flexibility and strength. It can be painful but at the end, I am so glad I did the practice, especially hatha yoga, flexibility yoga, and spinal breathing.... it is not a cure to ease pain, but I work 50 hours a week in retail and when I come home or if night shift, before I go, it just seems to ease out the pain triggered in our tender areas....hope this helps

I was diagnosed in 2006 with fibromyalgia. I had a back injury too. I had already had about 7 years yoga experience so I felt in my heart that I needed to get back to it.( It had helped me in the past with anxiety and depression). After approx 2 years, I was so much better that I was able to go back to work. I have stuck with it and actually thought I was cured. I was wrong....Due to a neck injury, I stopped yoga altogether 11 months ago...about 6 months ago, I started having some weird symptoms show up. I thought it was related to my neck! Blood work confirmed positive for an autoimmune disease. While I was able to enjoy 10 years remission, it is back full force. I started back with yoga 2 weeks ago. Acupuncture helped resolve my neck pain (herniated disks, bone spurs)and I believe it will help with Fibromyalgia symptoms along with yoga. Like others have shared, yoga is painful, but I truly believe in it's benefits for this disease. I have to do modified yoga (Yin Yoga style) right now, but I'm grateful that I was exposed to it enough to know it has many, many health benefits. I hope this helps you...Much Kindness and Happy New Year.